


Let’s Try This Again

by peterparkr



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Crack and Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Groundhog Day, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of death but no one stays dead, Time Loop, Time Travel Fix-It, Tony Stark Lives, and then the end is just
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 20:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20014624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterparkr/pseuds/peterparkr
Summary: Peter and Dr. Strange try to fix the outcome of endgame—over and over again.





	Let’s Try This Again

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a post by [avasstarrr](https://avasstarrr.tumblr.com/) on tumblr requesting an Endgame Groundhog Day so I decided to try it!
> 
> Enjoy :)

Peter clutches the gauntlet, ducks behind it slightly. It’s different, he realizes, from the one Thanos wore—red, more slender, and definitely Stark tech. The thought of Tony designing it makes him feel a little better, like the man’s there with him, even though he’s alone in a ditch with the very stones that Thanos’ army has massacred civilizations to find.

Dr. Strange had said that five years had passed, so he isn’t too surprised when a hero that he doesn’t recognize lands next to him.

“Hi, I’m Peter—Peter Parker.”

“Hi Peter Parker. Got something for me?”

A bunch of other heroes converge around them. Peter sees Pepper, the Scarlet Witch, antennae lady but he doesn’t know most of the others. Either a lot has changed in five years or there have always been more super-people than he realized.

“Badass,” he mumbles under his breath as they take off across the battlefield.

He lets his head drop to the ground, momentarily—just a quick break and he’ll get back to it. He’s about to muster the strength to push himself into a standing position when the heel of a boot appears above him. He crosses his arms over his face. The boot clips his side.

“Ouch, c’mon man,” he protests as he scrambles to his feet.

Dr. Strange’s cape waves at him, somehow looks apologetic about what happened. The man himself doesn’t turn back. 

Peter squints at him. He’s just walking—in a completely straight line. Everyone else is running or fighting or flying, but Strange doesn’t seem phased by any of it. He drifts right through a pack of the space-dog-things without even looking at them.

It’s odd behavior, even for a wizard. He’s going to get himself killed. Peter sighs. He feels obligated to make sure the guy doesn’t deliver himself directly to the tip of Thanos’ sword. 

“Dr. Strange?” He runs, a little painfully, to catch up. “Are you okay?”

Up close, the situation is even more concerning. Strange is muttering indiscernible phrases, gesturing wildly with his hands as he continues his march.

Peter grabs his shoulder and shakes it. Strange turns slowly. His bloodshot eyes lose their hazy edges and focus in on Peter.

“Ugh, you again,” Strange grumbles. “Shoo, go get beat up some more.”

Peter frowns. Sure, he didn’t think the wizard was his friend or anything, but they’re on the same team. This is their second fight together. That has to make them at least acquaintances.

“It’s just that you look kind of out of it, sir.”

Strange spins on his heels and stalks in the direction he had been going before. Peter follows behind, webbing up any creatures that come their way. The wizard doesn’t even flinch when they get close to him. 

“Do you think, maybe, you should find somewhere to sit this out?” Peter asks through gritted teeth as he grapples another hostile out of their path.

“Why are you still here?”

Peter shakes his head. That’s the thanks he gets for keeping this man alive.

Suddenly, the wizard’s calm, albeit insane, demeanor changes. He breaks into a sprint. Peter scans his field of vision, eyes landing on what Strange’s must have.

Tony is poised with a gauntlet on his hand, raising it up, ready to snap.

“And I—“ he starts.

“Stark,” Strange bellows. “You don’t have to do this!”

Tony’s eyes flicks towards Strange. He gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

“Am—.”

“Go,” Strange says, tilting his head towards his shoulder.

The cape slips off of the wizard’s back and glides through the air, tangling itself around the gauntlet-covered hand. Tony looks between the cape and Strange in shock. Peter watches with almost the same amount of disbelief.

The surprise shifts into a wary glance at Thanos, who is quickly approaching him from the side. Tony uses his other hand to tug at the cape, struggling to unravel it from the gauntlet.

The wizard does a jump-fly thing—which,  _ cool _ —to land on top of Tony. “Give me the stones, Stark.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tony snaps. “I need to end this. _ Now. _ ”

The cape retreats to Strange’s shoulders and his hands replace it’s former grip on the gauntlet. He starts shouting words that sound foreign to Peter, but have a similar cadence to what he had been mumbling on their walk over. Maybe he had been practicing.

Tony fires a repulsor, and Strange flies through the air, landing a few feet away. His head hits hard, body going still.

Thanos‘ shadow looms over Tony now. He shoots a repulsor at the titan with one hand and raises the nano-gauntlet with the other. 

Peter thought his heart had been racing before, but now it feels like his chest could burst. “Wait, Mr. Stark.”

Tony catches his eye, looks conflicted for a moment. Then he smiles. It’s only a little sad—more soft and determined. 

“It’s okay, Pete.” 

Tony nods at him and Peter mirrors the motion. The snap is quick, the flash of light afterward quicker. Peter brings up an arm to shield his eyes.

Thanos and his army fade away, but that barely registers to Peter. He stumbles over to the fallen suit. 

“Mr. Stark? Tony, please,” he whispers. 

He clutches the neck of the suit and bows his head. Hands grab his shoulders and pull him back. Rhodey’s solemn face fills his vision. He keeps his grip on Peter, which is good. He thinks he’d crumple under his own weight otherwise. Pepper is there too, holding Tony.

“Asshole!” 

Peter and Rhodey whip around toward the voice. Dr. Strange has picked himself off the ground and he’s livid, eyes wild. He stomps over to Tony’s body and kicks his leg. Peter winces.

“Hey!” Pepper glares at the wizard.

Rhodey drops Peter’s shoulders and strides over to Strange, shoving him back a step. “What the fuck is your problem, man?”

“Oh, calm down.” Strange mutters something that makes Rhodey’s suit seize up and side steps around him.

“You,” he says, pointing a shaking finger at Peter. “He hesitated when he saw you.”

He can’t stop crying. “Dr. Strange, please stop.”

“You’re coming with me.” The wizard snakes his hand around the back of Peter’s suit and tightens a vice-like hold on it.

Peter flinches slightly, but can’t find the energy to actually fight it. 

“I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing, but let go of him. And leave us alone.”

Pepper’s eyes are filled, but there’s a hardened fierceness behind them that Peter admires. He can’t summon any kind of strength. His body is limp and empty. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had somehow reverted back to his pre-bite days.

Strange momentarily slides his gaze over Pepper. “No.”

In quick succession, he does a series of complicated motions with the hand that isn’t gripping Peter’s suit. Glowing sparks linger in the air. The locket on his chest opens and closes. Peter swears that he sees the time stone inside, but that can’t be. It rests clearly on one of Tony’s still fingers.

Peter gasps. He feels sort of—floaty, like he’s fading away again.

* * *

He wakes up to what he imagines a hangover feels like, his head pounds and his muscles ache. He groans a little, can’t quite open his eyes yet.

Then, the events of—well it must have been a dream, come rushing back. Waking up on Titan, Strange sending them through a portal to the battle and then acting so weird throughout it, Tony dying. Maybe even farther back was a dream, too. No way he went to space, that’s crazy.

He groggily opens his eyes, expecting to see the familiar outline of his bedroom ceiling. Instead it’s Titan’s alien sky above him. 

Peter sits up quickly, scanning the horizon. Maybe he got knocked out in the fight against Thanos and the battle on Earth was the dream. He searches for Tony in the bodies laying around him, but the man isn’t there. Which means—actually he has no idea.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he says.

The person next to him shifts. It’s the Lord guy. “What happened?”

“This is very strange,” the woman with the antennae says.

“I thought he was Strange.” The big gray guy points at the wizard.

Strange pinches the bridge of his nose. “I hate you people.”

The guardians look at each other. Their leader does a silent impression of the wizard that Peter doesn’t think that the other two understand. They’re not the brightest team.

Strange conjures a portal, lazily. 

“You’ve all been dead for five years, the fight against Thanos continues, get out there.” He says it with the same enthusiasm that May reads Peter their weekly grocery list.

The guardians gawk at him for a minute and then leap to their feet. They gather their weapons and charge through the portal. Peter dazedly moves to follow them, but Strange blocks him. 

“You’re with me right?” Strange asks.

Peter’s brow furrows. “We—did this before?”

“Yes, good. Stay here. I have to open some other gateways.”

Strange exits through another circle that fizzles out as he enters it. Peter’s left alone on an abandoned planet. He shivers slightly. The silence is eerie.

His mind still feels a few steps behind. Slowly, he puts the pieces together. He’s woken up on Titan two days in a row—Strange announced the same Thanos spiel both times. The wizard’s erratic behavior on the battlefield starts to make sense. It’s a time loop. Strange has probably done it all before—god knows how many times. His mission seems to revolve around Tony.

It revolves around Tony because Tony died. Strange is trying to change that. Peter squeezes his eyes shut but it does nothing to stop the memories from surfacing. Tony holding his hand high, his smile when he looked at Peter, his chalky face and empty eyes afterwards.

The air starts hissing a few feet away and Strange steps towards him a moment later. He spares Peter a short glance that feels like disdain.

“It’s Parker, right?” Strange doesn’t even wait for Peter to confirm or deny it. “I have a plan. You need to do exactly what I say.”

Peter pushes the images away and crosses his hands underneath his arms to stop them from shaking. “How many times have you done this?”

“Too many,” Strange says as he traces a circular path with his hand—the motion is familiar to Peter now.

The wizard pulls him into the battle. It’s the same as he remembers it. His fellow heroes go through familiar motions. They’re fighting for their lives—aren’t aware that a wizard is giving them countless do-overs.

Strange starts walking again, with the same nonchalant attitude as last time. Peter scrambles after him, still flinching whenever an enemy approaches them. A few get close enough that he has to stop them. Strange doesn’t even turn his head.

“Why don’t you—“ He’s a little out of breath from protecting them. “Care about them. Do you have a protection spell?”

If he does, why wouldn’t he just use it on everyone in the battle? Or on Tony?

Strange shakes his head. “If I die, the loop resets. It doesn’t matter.”

Peter narrows his eyes. It’s odd logic. The wizard loses a chance to fix this every time that he wastes a loop. He wonders again how many times Strange has been through this—if it’s closer to 20 or 100 or more. He looks so tired.

“Okay, go get your hug,” Strange gestures at Tony.

Every time Peter thinks he has a grasp on what’s going on, Strange throws him again. He looks at him quizzically.

“He hugged you last time, right?” Strange taps his foot impatiently. “He’s hugged you every time I’ve watched this part.”

“Wait, why? Why do I need to do that again? And do I say the same thing or—“

“You are—quite infuriating.” Strange claps his hands together and then pushes them at Peter.

He goes flying in Tony’s direction, practically crashing into him. Tony freezes and his mask falls. Peter lets his down as well. He’s so happy to see Tony standing and breathing that it’s not hard to muster the same excitement he’d had last time. 

“Mr. Stark,” he breathes. 

He doesn’t remember exactly what he said yesterday, but he figures that accuracy isn’t completely necessary in this case.

“This is crazy—I, um, wow. Dr. Strange said five years passed and he opened these portals. It’s so good to see you—“ He bites back  _ alive _ . 

Tony doesn’t say anything, reaches around him and squeezes tight, just like last time. He kisses his cheek.

“Thank god,” he murmurs.

When Tony finally lets go, Peter can no longer swallow around the lump in his throat. He doesn’t want to watch Tony die again. Strange hadn’t given him a script, so he can’t be mad if Peter takes a risk. 

“Mr. Stark, be careful okay? This is only worth it if we all make it.”

Tony laughs. “Gained some wisdom in your absence, kid? I should be saying that to you.”

Peter fights back the urge to glare at him. Tony prepared the means to strip Thanos of the stones and snap if he had to. He’s not allowed to agree with what Peter just told him when he has plans to sacrifice himself.

“I’m serious,” he says. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I’ve never done anything stupid.”

Peter’s pretty sure that’s not true, but he doesn’t have the personal anecdotes to refute it like Rhodey or Pepper might. He doesn’t get a chance to answer, because members of Thanos’ army surround them once again. Peter loses Tony in the chaos.

Strange, apparently, never lost sight of Peter. He also seems to have a penchant for forcibly moving people, because he snatches Peter up, once again, and brings him to a relatively subdued patch of the field.

“What did you say to Stark?” he asks. “I need to keep track of what has been tried, for the next times.”

Peter hates how he’s already planning for future loops. This one could work. Peter’s in on it now, and he knows Tony better than Strange does.

“I just told him that it’s not worth it if we don’t all make it out.”

For the first time, the distaste leaves the wizard’s face. “Not bad, Parker.”

Strange leads him back to the spot where Tony had snapped. Peter’s stomach begins to churn when he sees it. He tries to lean over in the least conspicuous way possible, but of course it doesn’t go unnoticed. 

“Pull it together,” Strange says. “I need you to listen carefully.”

Peter tries to dim the roaring in his ears. He straightens his back, even as the contents of his stomach continue to riot, and nods slightly. The plan is what’s important, the last loop isn’t real anymore.

“Stark’s going to retrieve the stones from Thanos there.” Strange points. “Thanos will throw him off to about there.”

Peter knows that. He was there.

“As soon as Stark gets the stones, I need you with him. Tell him to fly up, get the stones out of here. Then we’ll regroup. I’ve tried to tell him before, but he might actually listen to you. Put on your usual clueless, wide-eyed, innocent act, but dial it up a few notches. Really lay it on him. Maybe throw in one of those “really old” movie references.”

He knows it’s not the time, but Peter can’t keep his outrage at bay. “Clueless? Wide-eyed, innocent? Is that how you see me? I’m an avenger, man.”

“More importantly that’s how  _ he  _ sees you.”

Peter frowns. “I don’t think that Mr. Star—”

He’s interrupted by Thanos’ arrival. The cool blonde woman and him fight over the gauntlet for a little bit. She almost had him. Power seems to radiate off of her. Peter glances at Strange, wonders if he’s tried that angle. He files it way to ask about if this doesn’t work.

But it  _ will  _ work, at least that’s what he tells himself.

Tony enters the scene.

“Didn’t even have to hold up the stupid finger the first time,” Strange says. “He always just does it anyway, the bastard.”

Peter has no idea what Strange is talking about—it’s probably more for his own benefit. He wonders if the man had always talked to himself or if it’s the time-loop related isolation that’s driving him crazy. 

“Get ready, Parker.”

Peter watches Tony sneakily obtain the stones and then bounds towards him. “Mr. Stark!”

Tony’s head snaps up. Peter watches the same series of emotions flit over it as last time. He smiles that sad-but-not-sad smile again and dread fills Peter. It’s too similar. He needs to change it.

“I’ve got Thanos. Get the stones to that lady,” Peter demands. 

It’s not exactly what Strange told him to do, but Peter’s never been great at following directions. The smile on Tony’s face shifts into bewilderment. His feet stay planted in place

“Mr. Stark, go!” Peter charges past him. “Activate instant kill mode.”

Thanos must hear the last bit, because he laughs. “Every child’s courage stems from stupidity. You can’t kill me, boy.”

He’s so  _ annoying. _ Peter launches himself at him with everything he has. His suit is going haywire, spindly spider legs stab out at Thanos, small repulsors shoot out in rapid succession. Peter dodges Thanos’ first attack, jumps, and lands a kick on his stomach.

It doesn’t do much to subdue the titan. Peter just hopes that Tony is long gone—that the stones are in someone else’s hands.

Thanos quickly starts to gain leverage. He forces Peter to the ground. The iron legs come around him like a cage to protect him from Thanos’ incoming punch.

The impact never comes. Something soft lands on Peter’s face. He opens his eyes, only to screw them shut to keep the dust out. He swipes at them and rolls over, praying that it had been anyone else, preferably someone super-human.

He’s not surprised to see the Iron Man suit lying still on the ground, right where Peter had run past Tony. 

Peter sprints over. “Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark—Tony?”

Tony blinks up at him, blearily. Peter can barely make out his expression through the thick film of tears.

“I told you to go,” Peter whispers.

“Not—worth it,” Tony says, before going terribly still.

“No, no, no, no.” He shakes his head. “We includes  _ you _ . You have to make it out, too.”

Peter’s fingers and toes start to feel tingly.

* * *

He wakes up gasping, Titan’s rough surface underneath him. His stomach twists violently and he shoots up, staggers a few feet away from the others before he starts gagging.

“What happened to that guy?”

“Scratch that, what  _ happened? _ ”

“This is strange.”

“I thought he was—”

“Right this way, five years have passed, first one to kill Thanos gets twenty bucks.”

Peter hears the whir of a portal and footsteps retreating into it. He digs his hands into the ground, tries to breathe instead of choke. It’s unsuccessful. Tony had died rather than watch Thanos take him out.

Strange’s boots enter Peter’s field of vision. “You didn’t follow orders.”

He doesn’t move or speak. The only sounds are his ragged breaths.

“If this is you on day 3—try day 87.”

87 days. Peter can’t imagine watching it so many times. That’s a lot of attempts; surely if something was going to work, Strange would have figured it out by now. 

But he owes it to Tony to try—to keep trying until something works. The man was— _ is _ his mentor after all. He was the first person to figure out his secret identity, he made the suit, protected him in tricky situations, and somewhere along the way he became more like a friend. Peter doesn’t dare actually add the word  _ father-figure _ (a concept that terrifies him) to the mix but it’s on the tip of his tongue.

The more he thinks about his own motivations for saving Tony, the more confused he grows about the wizard’s. Strange had seemed very intent that the stones were his only priority.

He glances up. “Why are you doing this?”

Strange doesn’t answer for a long moment and Peter takes the opportunity to struggle back to his feet.

“Thanos won’t be the world’s final threat,” Strange finally says. “And Stark is earth’s best defender.”

Peter’s not convinced. It seems like a cop-out answer, but he doesn’t press. He doubts he’ll get any more out of the tight-lipped man.

“We’re taking this one to plan, I’ll walk you through the situation.” He doesn’t sound happy about that, but there’s an air of resignation. Peter realizes that he’s running out of options.

Strange lays out the timeline of the first iteration of the battle, focusing on the stones. Barton started with them, then King T’Challa grabbed them which is who Peter rescued them from. The wizard calls the woman who took them next Captain Marvel. She’d tried to get it to the quantum tunnel in Lang’s van, but Thanos had disabled the device. Thanos obtained the gauntlet, a few heroes challenged him, ultimately leading to Tony.

The solution seems obvious, too obvious for Strange to have overlooked. “So when I get the stones—I could just take them and get the hell out of there.”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried that? The goal is two-part. We want to keep Stark alive, but we need Thanos and his army defeated. Every time I’ve gotten rid of the stones in the beginning, we lose.”

There must be other ways to beat Thanos. Without the stones in his possession, he’s just as mortal as everyone else in the fight. Peter almost voices his disagreements, but the finality written on Strange’s face stops him. 

“Then, I snap when I get the stones.” Peter’s proud that it comes out calm and steady when the thought is enough to send his heart stampeding.

“If anyone’s snapping, its Captain Marvel.” Strange levels Peter with a look. “She has the greatest chance of withstanding their power with the least long term effects.”

Peter groans. “Okay, so we get Captain Marvel to snap!”

“The gauntlet is so beat up by the time you get it, it won’t adjust anymore. Her hand won’t fit. We need Stark’s nanotech on Captain Marvel’s hand.”

“Then let’s do it!”

“It’s not that simple.” Strange punctuates each word with a pause as if Peter is having trouble grasping the concept.

He feels his face starting to flush, but that’s okay. Anger is better than the crushing despair from earlier. 

“But it can be. I’ll get the plans for the nano-gauntlet Tony made when I see him at the beginning of the battle. Then I’ll transfer the stones after I get them from King T’Challa. You try to get Captain Marvel to do the snap, but if she doesn’t want to, I will.”

“Parker, the stones will kill you.”

“No they won’t. I have super strength.”

Strange shakes his head. “It’s not enough.”

“Then make sure you get Captain Marvel on board.”

“The universe is against us in this.” The wizard actually sounds kind of sad, which throws Peter off. “It seems determined that we only get one or the other: the win or Stark. The most bizarre things have happened to make sure that I don’t succeed in obtaining both.”

“But I wasn’t in on it, then.”

They’re locked in a staring contest, but Peter won’t back down. Strange, and even Tony, might think of him as a naive child, but he’s stubborn. He will do what he thinks will fix this—with or without the wizard’s help. It’d be a lot easier with the guy on his side though.

“Fine,” Strange sniffs. “But only to prove to you what we’re up against.

* * *

“I know you made a way to remove the stones from the gauntlet, Mr. Stark,” Peter says. “I mean you had to have, you’re you.”

The fondness that had been present in Tony’s eyes following the hug is gone, replaced by confusion. Peter wants to put it back, but he wants to fix this more.

“Please, Mr. Stark, if something happens and I’m near Thanos—I want to be able to stop him. My suit’s nanotech, if you transfer the plans I’ll be able to construct it.”

Tony’s resolve hardens. “Don’t go near Thanos.”

“But  _ if  _ something happened and I ended up near him—you’ve got to give me a chance, please,” Peter pleads.

He needs the plans and he needs them soon. Strange is gesturing wildly from about 100 feet behind Tony, signaling for Peter to hurry.

Tony’s eyebrows scrunch together. “Fine, but I’m serious, don’t go looking for him, Pete.”

Peter nods enthusiastically. Tony must have told FRIDAY to send the gauntlet plans to him, because it shows up on his HUD seconds later.

“Thank you, thank you, sir,” Peter says, running past him towards Strange. “I’ve got to go, see you later.”

“Peter, where are you—I told you to stay away from him!”

He doesn’t turn back. Tony will be surrounded by enemies again soon enough and he won’t have time to track Peter down.

“Got it,” he tells the wizard. “Told you this would work.”

“It’s not over yet.” His voice is grave.

Peter swings to the position where he’s supposed to rescue the stones from T’Challa. He snatches them from him and turns in the opposite direction he went last time.

He sprints, gauntlet under his arm. Strange had set up a spot for them to meet once Peter had the stones and he had Captain Marvel. He makes it there with almost zero interference. So much for the universe being against them. Maybe it’s just against Dr. Strange because he’s a grumpy old wizard man.

Said wizard kneels at the site, hands steepled in front of his face. Captain Marvel is decidedly not with him.

“Where is she?” A note of hysteria creeps into his voice, but he can’t seem to control it. “Dr. Strange, where is she?”

Strange closes his eyes. “I can’t find her.”

“What do you mean you can’t find her? She has to be here somewhere.” 

“I have the default battle memorized, Parker,” Strange snarls. “ _ Memorized.  _ Approximately two and a half minutes ago she should have landed right there. She never showed.”

“She must be here somewhere. She blew up the ships!” Peter feels panic starting to crawl its way up his throat.

“I can’t find her!” Strange is practically screaming now. “I told you, the universe doesn’t want us to succeed!”

“No offense, Dr. Strange, but fuck the univ—“

* * *

Hard ground, alien sky.

“Wait, what,  _ what _ ?” Peter bolts to his feet.

Strange is laying on the ground with his head propped up, a small smile playing on his lips. “I told you, this isn’t going to be easy. Don’t disrespect the universe.”

“What the hell happened?” 

The guardians are watching the exchange with varying degrees of confusion. The big gray guy doesn’t even seem to notice that anything is weird about their conversation.

Strange shrugs. “Thanos showed up, knocked you out, grabbed the gauntlet from you and snapped all of us out of existence.” 

He’s barely holding back laughter as he says it. Peter groans and stalks away from the group. If he stays, he’s afraid he might punch the wizard in his smug face.

Once the guardians leave and Peter has taken enough breathes to curb the anger, he returns to Strange’s side. There’s still a glint of barely contained laughter in his eyes. His smirk says  _ I told you so. _

“Same plan,” Peter says firmly. “Except this time follow Captain Marvel as soon as she gets there. Don’t lose her—again.”

Much to Peter’s delight, the mention of Strange’s failure to locate the woman dims his mirth.

  
  
  
  


Peter almost cries from sheer joy when there are two figures at the meeting spot. His journey with the gauntlet hadn’t been easy this time. One of his eyes is swollen shut and he must have a few broken ribs—it hurts to breathe.

But he’s never been happier. 

He quickly assembles the nanotech according to Tony’s plans for the gauntlet. He transfers the stones and holds it out toward Captain Marvel.

“Only if you want to.” His voice cracks, they’re so close.

She accepts it immediately. “Of course. Thanks for bringing it to me—?“

“Peter Parker.”

“Carol Danvers.” Her smile is kind.

But it falls fast, her eyes shifting to something above his head. She takes a few steps back, dragging Peter with her and shoving him away. 

Peter feels a sickening crack and clutches his side. He blinks up and Thanos is upon Carol, sword high. Peter tries to scream, but all that he produces is a sharp wheeze.

Carol slips the nano-gauntlet onto her hand, a slight shudder runs through her body. The aura of raw power that she emits starts to waver in response to the strength of the stones. 

If Peter could speak, he would be yelling for her to just  _ snap _ . Strange does it for him.

“Snap, snap! Now,” he screams, as he launches spells, with seemingly no effect, at the titan.

Carol’s face contorts into a glare. She thrusts the hand without the gauntlet at Thanos, assumedly to shoot a stream of energy at him, but it sputters and blinks just like the glow around her. She raises her other hand simultaneously, moves her fingers.

Thanos’ sword arcs downward.

Peter winces, whipping his head to the side. When he forces himself to turn it back, Carol’s arm, the nano-gauntlet still on it, lays detached from the rest of her body. He gulps and averts his eyes.

Peter hears repulsors. He doesn’t look up—doesn’t want to see the inevitable yet again.

* * *

At least Peter can breathe normally, even if his ribs still feel a little achy. He sits up and takes the deepest inhale that he can. 

“Damn,” Strange says.

“This is very strange.”

“I thought he was Strange.”

“Complete imbeciles,” the wizard mutters. 

He moves his hand in a circular motion and sets the guardians on their way, then steps through another portal without a word to Peter.

Peter sits. The whistle of Thanos’ sword slicing through the air towards Carol echoes through his ears. If she’d only had a few more seconds—Peter could cut out their introduction. That should buy her enough time. 

He has a feeling it wouldn’t change anything. As much as he hates to admit it, Strange may have a point about the ‘universe’ thing. In general, Peter does have bad luck, but this is just excessive. Thanos had appeared basically out of nowhere two days in a row. Carol had  _ disappeared _ during the first try. That shouldn’t be possible.

Peter will just do it, like he’d wanted to before the last two loops.

He tells Strange as much when the man returns. “You don’t have to help me, but you can’t stop me.”

Strange just sighs.

  
  
  


As soon as the stones are in place, Peter snaps. He wishes for Thanos and his army to disappear—not die, it seems too harsh, even for them. He wishes for everyone on his side to stay safe. Especially Tony.

It’s agony. He collapses in a heap. Tony’s there in seconds.

“Peter?” His eyes are wide and frantic; his hands smooth over Peter’s hair. “You’re okay, you’re okay.”

Even Tony Stark is wrong sometimes.

* * *

Peter can still feel it. He wonders if it’s phantom pains or if some things really do linger from loop to loop. It doesn’t matter, because the neurons in his brain are firing either way. Peter curls in on himself.

A light hand grazes over his shoulder. “Yeah, that’s a rough one.”

So Strange had wielded the stones as well. Figures that he wouldn’t try harder to stop Peter from making the same mistake. Then again, no words would have stopped him from trying.

The guardians leave. Strange sits next to him, his cape wraps around Peter’s shoulders.

Peter doesn’t have the energy to control his emotions. Tears run freely down his face. He doesn’t want the damn wizard here. He wants May. Or Tony, who had held him yesterday until the end. 

Until the end—Tony had survived. And Peter had gotten rid of Thanos.

“Why’d you reset the loop?” Peter chokes out. “Tony lived and we won, those are the requirements.”

Strange doesn’t even look at him. “Don’t do that.” 

Peter doesn’t have the will to argue.

* * *

“This is very strange.”

“DON’T—just go through here. It’s been five years, please go chop off Thanos’ head.”

New loop, new attitude. It helps that the pain has almost disappeared. Peter decides to act like the slight ache he still feels is from waking up on the hard ground over and over.

“Okay, I have some questions.” Peter leaps up and starts pacing.

“And, you’re back,” Strange says. “Is it terrible to say that I prefer the less active, mostly silent version?”

“Yes, sorry to waste all that time yesterday.”

“I don’t think you’re fully grasping the concept, here. We, quite literally, have all the time that we need.”

Peter knows that technically that is true. However, Strange had seemed on the verge of insanity when he first entered the loop. There’s only so much of this that their minds will be able to take.

“Which leads me to my first point,” he says. “That’s a time stone in your necklace, right? How are there two?”

Strange looks surprised that Peter noticed. “After the original iteration, I grabbed it from the gauntlet. It controls the loop.”

Peter had thought as much. He strides back and forth a few more times. Strange’s head follows his movements.

“Can’t it reverse the effects of Tony’s death after the fact or something?”

“Usually yes, though it’s easier with flowers than people,” Strange replies. “But, I’ve tried. Apparently one stone can’t reverse the work of six.”

So many rules and technicalities. The stones are the obvious focal point of their operation. Maybe they need to shift to something else.

“Walk me through the battle. All of it.”

Strange complies. Peter closes his eyes and runs through scenarios.

“Have you tried protecting the van that Carol was trying to get the stones to?”

Strange nods. 

“Ever just gone straight for Thanos?”

Another nod.

“Can you drop him through a portal to the other side of the universe?”

“He wiped out a few planets over there and came back angrier.”

Peter’s enthusiasm is starting to wane. He grasps at anything to keep it up.

“Well, there are two of us now.” The fakeness of his optimism is overwhelming. “Let’s just start trying things.”

* * *

Strange insists that they start to stick to the schedule he had formed before Peter got involved. Six days on, one day off to rest and plan.

Peter hates the thought of wasting so many cycles. There are infinite changes they could make to the battle, and any of them could be the one that happens to work.

  
  
  


They try the van first. They’re still discussing how exactly to place magical and web barriers around it when the sword arrives. It’s earlier and from a different angle than in the default. It plunges into the van, right past them. The explosion knocks them out cold. 

Peter wakes to hard ground once again. He shifts slightly, but stays down. His brain seems to have developed its own heartbeat. Explosions aren’t fun either—not as bad as the stones though.

“C’mon kid, you’ve got to get up. No time for a power nap.”

Peter barely manages to squint up—even the dim light is too much. Sure enough, Tony’s face is peering down at him.

“Gotta be kidding me,” Peter mumbles. “That’s what worked?”

The lines on Tony’s forehead deepen. “Hit your head pretty hard. Try to stay awake, I’m going to get you out of here.”

“S’over? We won?”

He laughs. “Not yet, kiddo.”

Peter winces at the way his brain pounds against his skull as Tony lifts him up. He should be fighting against the arms that are wrapped around him. The battle isn’t over. He needs to be down there. Strange must still be alive if the loop hasn’t reset. They might be able to salvage this somehow.

But his eyelids are almost as heavy as his head. And he’s with Tony.

“Pete, wake up.” There’s light tapping against his cheek.

He’s propped up against a slab of concrete that might have been a building once. Keeping two eyes open is far too difficult, so he settles for propping up only the left one. It’s enough to see Tony’s concern. Peter can also hear his rapid heart rate.

“I hate to leave you alone, but I really have to get back out there.” Tony keeps glancing around the concrete at the battle. “Promise me you’ll stay up. If you don’t, I’m going to add a feature to your suit that can shock you awake and nobody wants that.”   


Peter opens his mouth to answer, but he’s distracted by the all too familiar fuzzy feeling. It’s the same almost every time, whether Tony dies or Thanos snaps, he’s always left falling apart.

“Shit.” Tony looks down at his disintegrating hand.

It’s okay. Peter prefers the times when they all fade away to those where Tony alone dies.

* * *

“Well, now we know where and when the sword comes,” Strange says. “If we do everything before it the exact same way.”

Peter massages his forehead. “Let’s do it.”

  
  
  


Strange constructs some sort of magical foundation and Peter reinforces it with web fluid. The tip of the sword plunges halfway through before stopping. He thought he had been through enough loops to realize that hope is a dangerous thing, but the beginnings of it burn like a small flame deep in his stomach.

Captain Marvel flies by with the gauntlet, nodding at them as she passes. She shoots back into the past. Peter releases a breathe that he must have taken before the sword hit. 

The relief doesn’t last long because the back of his neck begins to itch.

“God, what now?” Peter groans.

“What, what’s the matter?”

Peter scans the battlefield around them, nothing seems dire. “I don’t know, but something’s going to happen.”

Strange looks skeptical. Peter shrugs and waits. Too late, he recognizes his error.

“Peter, watch out!”

He forgot to look up.

He almost decides not to move—he’s died so many times at this point, what’s one more. But, at the last second his survival instinct kicks in and he throws himself to the side and rolls.

A large chunk of Thanos’ destroyed ship lands directly on Strange. Peter sighs as the Iron Man suit touches down next to him, offers him a hand up. 

“That’s awful luck,” Tony frowns at Strange’s boots sticking out from under the wreckage.

Morbid laughter bubbles out of Peter. “He’s like the wicked witch. It’s perfect ‘cuz he’s a wizard.”

Tony clamps a hand down on Peter’s shoulder. It does nothing to stop them from shaking. He can’t stop laughing.

Tony’s looking at him like he doesn’t recognize who he’s seeing. “I get jokes as a coping mechanism, kid, but this is another level.”

Peter feels the exact moment that Strange dies from the tingling that starts to creep up from his toes.

* * *

They plan a few different attacks on Thanos. Strange gets impaled by his sword a few times, Peter gets pummeled into the ground by large purple hands once.

“Serves you right,” Strange tells him after that one. “Teach you not to make  _ Wizard of Oz  _ jokes when someone gets crushed.”

The biggest problem with attacking Thanos is that as soon as Tony notices that the titan is gaining the upper hand on someone, he finds the stones and snaps. Especially if that person is Peter. Tony’s been known to snap if Thanos so much as looks in Peter’s direction.

* * *

Strange drops Thanos through portals to countless locations across the galaxy. One time, they go thirty minutes without sight of him, but he still reappears.

“How is he getting back here? How is that possible?”

Strange bows his head. “If I knew, I’d stop it.”

* * *

“I’m not, like, hungry,” Peter says. “But I miss food.”

It’s a break day. Peter’s sprawled on the surface of Titan, hands behind his head. If he closes his eyes and turns up the heater in his suit, he can pretend he’s on a beach.

They’ve done enough days off for him to realize that wasting a loop isn’t the problem. The issue is that there’s nothing to plan anymore. Peter has the default battle memorized by now, but he lets the wizard run through it at the start of each seventh iteration anyway. They’re rapidly running out of ways to nitpick each individual event in the battle. So, Strange’s retelling fills a little block of their time before they fall into uneasy silence and Peter inevitably starts rambling. 

“I can’t decide what I want the most. I could really go for some ice cream. Or a three-course fancy-type meal. But another part of me would really just like a sandwich from Mr. Delmar’s. He’s such a nice guy. His store is right by—”

Strange clears his throat. Peter rolls onto his side so that he can see his face. He’s sitting on a boulder, his cape paces behind him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, by all means, continue.” His voice drips with sarcasm. “But if you’d like to hear about it, I think I have a new idea for the ships.”

The Scarlet Witch is always so close to taking Thanos out, but he calls the order to rain fire every time. If they could disable the weapons before that point it would be a game changer. Although, Peter’s hesitant to call it that. Other things have seemed that way as well, and they all failed in the end. They’ve tried this angle before, but always come up short, sometimes failing to stop the weapons, other times careening to the ground with the ships or blowing themselves up.

“We need one of the sisters, one of Thanos’ daughters,” Strange says. “They might know the codes so we can put the weapons offline.”

“You know me,” Peter replies with a forced grin. “I’m willing to try anything once, maybe even twice.”

* * *

The sisters are hard to find, even though Strange and Peter both know where they should be at any given moment. Peter’s not surprised. The universe has proved to be very much against them.

It takes a second loop to find them. Another to successfully get to the ships, all webbed to Strange’s cloak. They get taken out by guards and they accidentally get blown up again, but finally, they reach a command station. 

Gamora types sequences into the keyboard, Strange and Peter leaning around her. Peter’s shaking with anticipation. He wants to tell her to hurry, but also to slow down, make sure that she presses the right buttons.

“What’s wrong with you two?” Nebula asks. It doesn’t sound like she actually cares, it’s merely curiosity.

Peter and Strange share a glance. He wonders if he looks as frazzled as Strange does.

“Just, really want this to work,” he says.

It seems to, a message that all weapons have been disabled flashes across the screen. 

“I can also lock it with Thanos’ personal code,” Gamora says, typing again.

“That’s incredible, thank you so much, this is so perfect,” Peter gushes.

Strange elbows him. His scowl is fierce. Peter knows what he means by it. It’s one of their newest rules.  _ Don’t jinx it. _

The cape floats them down so that they can watch Thanos’ battle with Wanda. 

“Shouldn’t we—help her? Rather than hanging up here?” Gamora asks.

“Shhhhh,” Strange hisses.

Peter offers her an apologetic smile and then tunes back in to the battle. They’ve tried to help Wanda before, it distracted her, made her fail quicker.

The beginning goes similar to the default. Peter waits with bated breath for the ships to fire when Thanos gives the order, but the sky remains quiet. Wanda has him pinned, but he’s still fighting, refuses to give up. 

“Let us down,” Nebula says. “We can end this now.”

Peter looks to Strange. This is new territory. Maybe they should help. With the five of them, they should be able to finish him.

He doesn’t get to voice his thoughts because Captain Marvel flies past them with a slight whoosh that sends the cape drifting a bit to the side. She plows right through Thanos’ head.

The four of them fall still. He imagines the struggle it must be for Gamora and Nebula. Even if Thanos was terrible, he still raised them. There are bound to be some conflicting emotions there. 

“Down,” Strange says to his cloak.

When they reach the ground, they all stagger towards Thanos’ body. Carol and Wanda stand over him, the latter panting and the former smirking. Whenever they get out of this loop—and Peter hopes that’s now—he’s going to do everything in his power to become Carol’s new best friend.

“Is that—is this—is it over?” Peter asks.

Strange doesn’t move, can’t seem to tear his eyes away from Thanos. Peter starts running.

He passes Steve Rogers. “Have you seen Tony?”

“Not since the beginning, I’m sure he’s somewhere, Queens.”

Peter doesn’t answer. He’s seen enough to not be so sure.

Then, a space dog turns to ash right in front of him. His blood runs cold. 

“No, no, no, please,” he whispers as he swings his head back and forth, up and down, praying for a red suit.

Insead, there’s a blue one, next to a clunkier build. As he gets closer, the red becomes clear as well. Peter pushes between Pepper and Rhodey and crouches.

“Why, why! Carol killed him, she’d already killed him.”

Pepper starts crying harder, leaning into Rhodey.

“We didn’t know that, he just snapped as soon as he got the stones.” Rhodey always looks devastated. “He didn’t want anyone else to get hurt, self-sacrificing idiot.” 

“There’s no way to win!” Peter’s screaming now, voice shrill. “This was as perfect as it’s going to get! It’s never going to be good enough for you, is it?” 

He addresses the last part towards the sky.

Rhodey places his hands on his shoulders, so much like the first time that Peter can remember. The universe’s message is clear. It’s always going to end like this. There’s movement behind them. Strange’s cloak bumps Peter’s side a few times. He recognizes the gesture as an attempt at comfort.

“Goddamnit, Stark,” Strange sighs.

* * *

“This is very strange.”

“I thought he was—”

“Shut up!” Strange’s and Peter’s voices overlap.

When the guardians troop into the portal, Peter follows. Strange holds out a hand in front of him. He pushes past it.

“Parker,” Strange says, low and stern enough that Peter pauses. “There’s no need to do anything rash.”

“What does it matter?” Peter asks. “Like you said, we have all the time in the world.”

“If we’re going to fix this, we need to stick to our routine, our plans.”

“Every single plan has failed.” He shakes his head and steps through the portal. “See you out there, or tomorrow, whatever.”

Peter stomps over to where him and Tony meet up. It’s the one part of the battle that he does consistently. Call him dramatic and sentimental, but sometimes he thinks the only thing keeping him going is this little moment of bliss within all the chaos.

He didn’t come here with the intention to start something, but as soon as Tony flicks his mask down and his face goes soft and fond, Peter takes a step back.

“Not today,” he mutters.

Tony narrows his eyes, but he’s still smiling. “Peter—“

He webs both of Tony’s arms to his sides. The smile turns into a scandalized ‘o’.

He wraps a line around Tony for good measure. The man’s completely speechless. Peter grabs him by his abdomen and hoists him over his shoulder.

“Not today,” he repeats. “You don’t get to hug me and look all happy when I know what you’re planning to do. Well it’s not going to happen this time, Mr. Stark. Not today.”

It seems that Tony has found his voice because he starts chattering as Peter carries him away from the battlefield.

“Peter, buddy, put me down, I don’t know what’s going on, but if you just get these webs off of me, we can figure it out.”

“Nope.”

“Peter.” It’s more of a snarl now. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

Peter snorts. His webs are strong, even stronger than Tony’s suit, especially with the amount that he stretched around the man.

“You can’t. And even if you could, you wouldn’t.”

Tony’s shocked into silence again. When they’re about a mile outside the farthest Peter has ever seen the action go, he dumps Tony onto the ground. He contemplates putting even more distance between them and the stones, a mile is nothing after all. But, even with all his enhanced strength, he’s exhausted. It’s probably more mental than physical.

“Do you want to explain exactly what’s going on here?” His tone is icy.

“You just stay there,” Peter says. “I’ll protect you.”

He watches the battle, warily, trying to determine if it’s coming closer to them. He’d learned a lot of lessons throughout the loops so he also occasionally glances upward and behind them. The universe is persistent. It’ll do anything. He can still hear every explosion and gunshot, flinches every time they sound closer than he thought they would.

“Kid, come sit down,” Tony doesn’t sound mad anymore. “We’re safe all the way over here.”

“No you’re not.”

Peter feels something on his cheek. He reaches up, surprised to find it wet. He stares at his hand.

“I know this must be really fucking weird, waking up and coming straight here,” Tony says. “I’m so sorry, Pete. I never should have got you involved in any of this. But you’re going to be okay. Why don’t you cut these webs off of me, I’ll go help finish the fight, and then I’ll come back here and get you, okay?”

Peter violently shakes his head. “That won’t happen, no way. I’m not letting you do it. Not today, man.”

Peter does another 360 to check their surroundings. He feels Tony watching him.

“You keep saying that,” Tony muses. “‘Not today’. What’s going on?”

Peter halts his vigil. One thing they’ve never tried is telling anyone about the loop. He doesn’t think it will change anything, but he also doesn’t think it can hurt. The worst that can happen is waking up on Titan.

“Dr. Strange made a time loop,” he says. “We’re trying to fix it.”

Tony’s face becomes unreadable. “So, we lose?”

“We lose  _ you _ .” 

Tony doesn’t look surprised and Peter hates him a little bit for it. It confirms what he had thought all along. Tony never expected to survive this fight. 

“My life for half the universe isn’t a bad deal, Pete.”

“Yes, it  _ is _ . There has to be some way, Strange and I just haven’t found it yet.”

Tony pushes against his restraints. The webs have dissolved enough that he frees his arms. “How many times?”

Peter doesn’t know the answer to that. He used to keep track, Strange probably still does, but he stopped counting after his fiftieth. The number started to make him too sad. He shrugs.

“It’s not worth this, kid. Look at you, you’re—” Tony doesn’t finish that part, just places a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Just, tell the wizard I said to call it quits.”

“Or, on the other hand, Mr. Stark, ” Peter says. “You could stop making an unnecessary sacrifice.”

“Think about how many times you’ve done this. Maybe it’s not unnecessary.”

The words bring Peter’s thoughts to a screeching halt. But it can’t be. Last time, it wasn’t needed. They’d already killed Thanos. Tony’s snap was meaningless.

He’s about to say as much when his edges start to go fuzzy. Tony looks down at his own body, then back up at Peter, eyes wide.

Peter sighs. “I hate this feeling.”

Tony pulls him into a hug. “It’s okay, Peter. You can let it go.”

They drift away.

* * *

Strange is giving him the silent treatment, which is fine by Peter. He isn’t in the mood to talk anyway. It lasts for a few cycles. Peter follows the wizard to different moments in the battle and he adapts to whatever Strange tries without orders. 

Peter’s the one to break the quiet. He doesn’t want to be, but he has an idea. 

“Did you ever try letting it flood?” He’d just watched Strange tell Wong to look out for the water for what feels like the thousandth time.

Strange doesn’t answer immediately and Peter rolls his eyes. He’s supposed to be the child here, but the wizard is the one acting like it.

“No, actually.” Peter mentally takes back his thoughts about the guy. 

They try it. Drowning is Peter’s second least favorite way to die, topped only by the time he snapped.

* * *

He can’t get enough air. Titan’s atmosphere is a little thinner than Earth's, which doesn’t help.

If Strange is having the same problem, he doesn’t show it. Maybe he was above the water, he has the cloak after all.

“We need to alert everyone who can fly, before we let it flood, so they can start getting our people to safety.”

So they’re going to do it again. Peter squeezes his eyes shut. Just the thought of water makes him dizzy.

“Do you need a day?” Strange watches Peter, analyzing but not unkind.

Peter often forgets that the wizard has more compassion than he likes to show. 

But, Peter also tends to defy expectations. He’s been stronger than people assume for far longer than he’s had his powers.

He takes a deep breath. “I’m good.”

Strange helps him to his feet.  
  
  


Somehow he finds himself attached to Sam Wilson, who’s holding Steve and Bucky, one under each arm. He’d fought against all of them once, but none of that matters now. The whole thing at the airport seems so insignificant. Peter’s sure that everyone involved agrees.

Peter’s soaked, which makes him nervous. He’s shivering and still hasn’t quite gotten a hang of the breathing thing today. His hands have a death grip on the web that connects to Sam’s stomach, as if it’s the only thing between him and the afterlife. And it would be, if it weren’t for the loop. The water sloshes and swirls below him, hostile and dark. Every once in a while, the head of an alien creature pokes up.

“Okay down there, Spider-boy?” Sam calls.

It’s good to pry his eyes away from the water. “Y-yeah. I could probably grab some more people with my webs. Can you take anymore weight?”

Peter’s pretty sure he knows the answer. Sam’s no super-soldier, but he’s holding two, plus Peter. That’s tough. And the wings surely aren’t meant to support four bodies.

“I think your dad’s got it covered.”

Peter almost makes an orphan joke—a reflex he developed a long time ago and can’t seem to break. Then, Tony flies by, dives into the water, and he realizes the meaning of Sam’s words. He bites back the correction, because semantics don’t matter right now and the words are just meant to get a rise out of him anyway.

He can worry about it when the man who maybe, kind of, might be creeping into the tentatively named older-male-role-model position isn’t dying every single day.

Sam drops down in the clearing where all of the surviving heroes are gathered with a relieved sigh. Peter thanks him a few times before running off, taking stock of who’s there and who isn’t, looking for Strange. 

The cloak finds him first. It wraps around Peter and starts drying off the water. He’s grateful, tells the cape so. He doesn’t think he’s imagining that it stands a little straighter. Maybe he’ll steal it from Strange when this is all over, he doesn’t think the cape would mind the swap.

Strange has a magical list started, hovering in the air by his side. He and Peter walk around, checking off names as they find people. It’s going surprisingly well. They’ve encountered most of the main players (Peter hates to break people down into important vs. unimportant, but Strange reasons that they don’t even know the names of every sorcerer or Wakandan that was there). The most notable absences are all related to Tony, which doesn’t surprise Peter in the slightest. They haven’t found the man himself, Rhodey, or Pepper.

Even though Peter had just seen him diving into the water, he still doesn’t bother reassuring himself that it will be fine. It never is. 

This time is no different.

The three are together, as the loop so often dictates. The Iron Man suit is horizontal. 

“What happened.” It barely passes as a question, Strange’s voice is so flat.

“I think his suit electrocuted him,” Pepper says. She’s not crying, just sitting in shock.

Rhodey’s eyes are even wider. “That’s—not possible.”

“Of course it did,” Peter says, just as Strange mutters “Figures.”

* * *

“It was a good idea,” Strange offers as the guardians file through another orange disk. “That’s the kind of stuff we need to focus on, now—the common factors between loops. It could even be something we don’t realize we’re doing.”

Peter had been planning on sleeping this cycle away. It’s a break day after all and they had just tried what feels like their last solid idea, so there’s nothing left for them to discuss. At Strange’s words, that all changes.

“I see him every time,” Peter says. “When we hug.”

Strange brings a hand to his mouth, it flutters slightly in front of it. There’s a far away look on his face, he’s deep in thought. “I knew I brought you into this for a reason.”

Hope is a funny thing. Every time another loop ends unsuccessfully, Peter’s sure that he’ll never be capable of feeling it again. But for some reason, it’s there. This solution feels  _ right. _

* * *

“This time, he’s not going to see you at all,” Strange says. “We’ll see how that goes.

Peter nods and Strange casts an invisibility spell on him before they step through the portal. They find Tony in his usual starting position and hover a few yards away from him as he fights.

When Tony first notices Strange, a diluted version of the expression he usually gets when he sees Peter flits over his face. “Where’s the kid?”

Peter tenses, but Strange doesn’t so much as blink. He shrugs nonchalantly and turns to act like he’s fighting one of the enemy aliens. Tony looks worried, but there’s not much time for him to do anything about it—it’s the fight of his life.

They stay a little farther from Tony after that.

He still gets the stones. Peter surges forward, but Strange must have a way of sensing where he is, because some magical force tackles him to the ground. Peter struggles against it, an invisible mime in an invisible box.

“Not this time.” Strange’s arms are crossed, never turning toward Peter.

All Peter can do is watch. Tony’s eye cast around wildly, but they never seem to land on what he’s looking for. Peter wonders if it’s him.

Whatever it is, not finding it isn’t enough to stop him. Tony does one more sweeping glance of the battle and snaps.

* * *

“This is very strange.”

“I thought he was Strange.”

The wizard just sighs, opens the same portals. Peter stays on the ground as an act of defiance. It feels lame even as he does it.

“What are you sulking for? It definitely affected him. That’s a good sign.”

Peter refuses to look at Strange. “Don’t do that again—the trap thing.”

“You never stop whining.”

  
  
  


Peter reveals himself as soon as Tony dons the stones, screaming and waving his arms in the air as if he’s a castaway who’s been stranded on an island for months. If he really thinks about it, their situation isn’t that different. He feels that same desperation.

Tony shudders to a halt when he looks up. Peter takes the opportunity to web the hand with the stones so that it will remain open. 

“Mr. Stark—Tony, everything will be fine. Just fly up, Strange is going to get Captain Marvel and she can handle the snap. Have you met her? She literally has a layer of energy or something around her. It’s amazing.”

There’s a pang at the base of his skull, but Peter ignores it. It’s not always reliable, and this is a stressful situation.

“Peter!”

“No, listen! Just fly up, now! Why are you still here? Go—”

A lot of things happen all at once. Tony fires a repulsor to break the webbing on his hand. He poises to snap. Peter brings his hand up to shoot another web, he’ll just tie Tony up if he has to. Something hard comes down on Peter’s head. The last thing he sees are fingers snapping.

* * *

“What are we doing here, Strange?” Peter’s pissed and his head is throbbing. “That was almost the same as my first loop ever.”

“There was a longer hesitation when he saw you, I timed it.”

That doesn’t merit a reply. He’s tired of studying Tony’s responses, analyzing battle positions, and most of all, dying. It’s—pointless. The thought makes him almost giddy. This whole thing is pointless. There’s no purpose, no real lesson to be learned, just Peter and a wizard and—.

And Tony. 

“Okay.” Peter sets his jaw. “Let’s try this again.”

  
  
  


Peter has the instructions for making the nanotech-gauntlet memorized from his previous attempts. When Tony holds up that hand in that  _ same way _ , he leaps at it and snatches them. The energy of the stones courses, painfully, through his bloodstream. He refuses to let it knock him to the ground. He’s done this before. He can do it again. 

“Okay, good,” he says. “Now, everyone, calm the fuck down.”

“Parker,” Strange calls, jogging towards him. “Haven’t we talked about following the damn plan?”

Peter ignores him. Thanos and Tony are both staring at him with the same expression, jaws hanging, spines straight with disbelief.

“I have the stones, and I’m not afraid to use them.” That’s a lie, the pulses of energy already running through his body are a painful reminder of last time. “So, I’d like you both to choose your next move very carefully.”

“Peter, what are you doing, kid?” Tony’s looking back and forth between him and Thanos.

The question hits harder than it should. The pain is starting to mess with his head. He blinks a few times, trying to focus around it. Get the stones and—and—get to Captain Marvel, that’s it. It would have been easier if Tony, who can  _ fly _ would have just taken them there.

“Dr. Strange, could I borrow your cloak?” 

The cloak attaches itself to Peter’s shoulders before Strange says a word. Peter knew it liked him better. He’s about to tell it to take him to Carol when Thanos starts laughing. 

“Unfortunately, child,” he says. “You revealed exactly what move I should make.”

Peter frowns because he’s fairly certain he did not, but the titan shifts his focus to Tony. Tony—whose suit is already damaged and weakened from the effect of the stones and Thanos is smart because Peter sort of has an aversion to watching him die, but so very dumb because Peter would never hand over the stones.

The sound of a metallic snap will always haunt his nightmares.

* * *

This time, not moving isn’t a conscious choice. His body aches, hot strips of pain spasm through it. 

“That went well,” Strange says with mock optimism. “Until it went very, very poorly.”

“You can say that again,” Quill says. “What exactly happened?”

“This is very strange.”

Strange holds out his hand and a surge of magic knocks Drax out cold before he can speak. 

With great difficulty, Peter swipes away the tears and rolls onto his hands and knees. Each slight movement is punctuated by one or two unsteady breathes.

Strange kneels beside him. “In all seriousness, Parker, stay down.”

He shakes his head, pushes up into a kneeling position. Titan’s now familiar landscape spins. Strange’s cape sets up like a table in front of him and he leans into it. He really does love the damn thing.

“Once he gets—the stones, it’s—game over.” Talking while still breathing is hard. “The pain—can’t think straight. And he’s too determined—by then. Gotta get him before he makes that decision.”

Strange reaches for one of Peter’s hands, flips it over and places two fingers there. Peter frowns down at them. His pulse really isn’t important. If something goes wrong, Strange just resets the loop.

“Gotta try,” Peter says.

Strange waits a few more seconds, probably finishing counting. “Not now.”

“Yes now.”

“What does it matter, Parker?”

It matters because he wants this to be over. He wants to see May and he wants to never wake up in space again. He doesn’t want Tony to keep dying and he doesn’t want to keep disintegrating. But most importantly, he needs some semblance of control. The universe has stopped them at every turn and it doesn’t expect Peter to get up today. So that’s what he will do.

“Let me try,” he pleads. “Please.”

Strange exhales, long and deep. He rubs circles across his forehead. Then, he brings one of the hands down and orange sparks fly. If Peter could smile, he would. 

With the wizard on one side, and the cape on the other, Peter struggles to his feet and steps onto Earth. They just about drag him to the place and lower him to the ground where Tony will arrive eventually.

“Go get—Carol ready,” Peter says. 

Strange brow furrows, but he nods. The cape waves at Peter as they fly away.

The waiting is the worst part. He’s nervous and everything hurts. All he can think about is ways this could fail, only offset by the bursts of pain.

Finally that red suit rolls into his view.

“Tony,” he rasps.

The man stands straight, spins around frantically. Peter lifts his hand a little—an attempted wave.

Tony runs over, falls onto his knees and draws Peter towards him. Peter can’t help but wince. It doesn’t escape Tony’s notice. He holds Peter out at arms length and looks him over.

“What happened? Are you okay? You’ll be okay. What happened?”

“I’ll be—fine. Just listen.”

Tony’s not paying attention to the words. He’s sliding a hand over Peter’s suit, searching for any place that it has been compromised. Peter imagines that he’s already had FRIDAY analyze it as well. Neither of them are going to find anything. It’s just left over pain.

“Tony, listen. I’m fine—promise. Explain after,” he says. “Just listen, please.”

The man drags his eyes from the suit to Peter’s face. 

“Gotta use your tech. Get the stones from Thanos. But don’t—use them. Just hold them and wait. Strange is telling Carol—she can finish him if he doesn’t—have stones.”

Tony’s completely still for a minute and then his face scrunches up. Peter knows he’s about to question it and protest and ask for all the specifics of how and why, but there’s no time for that.

“Don’t think, just listen. Get the stones. Do  _ not _ snap.” Peter uses every bit of his strength to grip Tony’s shoulders hard and shake them. “Trust me. Just this once.”

There’s determination on Tony’s face now. “Not just once, Pete. Sit tight.”

The Iron Man suit takes off. Peter claws at a piece of rubble until he’s propped up against it so he can watch. Silently, he begs the universe to give him this one.

Tony obtains the stones. It’s so similar to the usual sequence that panic starts to send chills up and down Peter’s spine. But then, as Tony rolls away from Thanos, he stands. He looks towards Peter, face almost imperceptibly strained against the stones. He nods once. It’s not the nod of resignation that Peter has so often received from the man. There’s something entirely different there. Peter decides to call it trust.

Tony fires repulsors and shoots into the sky.

Peter clamps a hand over his open mouth. He searches for Carol’s glow.

She zips past him, fist raised, and barrels straight into the titan. Thanos only lands one weak punch before it’s over. 

Peter waits for the feeling—the numbness of fading. Nothing comes so he just sits, gaping at the titan’s still body.

Tony and Strange land next to him simultaneously. Strange is pale, sways a bit on his feet. When they meet eyes, the wizard looks just as floored as Peter feels.

“Nice work, Captain,” Tony calls to Carol.

His smile looks fake, face drawn and taught. From the stones, Peter realizes. They’re still embedded in his armor.

“Is it—it’s—what—is it over?” Peter stammers.

Strange doesn’t exactly sit. It’s more like he stops fighting gravity, collapses next to Peter. Even the cloak looks exhausted, drooping at the edges.

Tony rests a hand on Peter’s head, spares Strange a worried glance.

“Cap, Thanos is dead,” He says into his comm. “I have the stones. What do you want me to do with them?”

That sparks nothing short of terror, sharp like glass in Peter’s stomach.

“Don’t snap, don’t snap, don’t snap.” It’s his mantra.

Strange pushes himself back to his feet, holds a wary hand up in Tony’s direction. “You heard the boy.”

Tony raises his hands above his head. He studies Peter and Strange, cautiously, like they’ve lost their minds. They probably have.

“Relinquish the stones, Stark.” Strange’s hand shakes more than usual.

“What the hell happened to you two?” Tony sounds more worried than angry.

The stones drop one by one onto the ground. Tony’s shoulders sag a little in relief. Strange relaxes back onto the ground.

Carol makes her way over to them. She hovers above the stones, arms crossed, standing guard.

“Ms. Danvers,” Peter says. “I love you.”

Her nose wrinkles as she smiles. It’s two parts fond, one part confused. “Have we met?”

Strange starts snickering. It’s contagious and soon they’re both shaking with it, leaning into each other.

Carol and Tony’s expressions are comical, all exaggerated concern and uncertainty. It just spurs them on. Peter starts to feel dizzy, then light-headed and floaty. It’s all too familiar. Something must have gone wrong, as always.

He stops laughing abruptly. “Uh oh.”

* * *

He wakes up to  _ soft _ —a welcome change. When he slowly, hesitantly, opens his eyes, there’s ceiling rather than sky. No guardians recite their lines. No wizard comments on another loop gone wrong.

Peter scoots up so that he’s sitting against the pillows behind him. He pulls the blanket up to his chin and looks around the room. It’s unfamiliar, mostly empty and bare, but there are no machines to suggest that he’s in a hospital. 

There are footsteps and then the door opens. “You’re awake.”

There’s no way this is real because there’s Tony—in a comfy-looking sweater, with a mug in his hand. Maybe they’re both dead. Except, a few cuts with butterfly bandages across them litter his face. If this were some kind of afterlife, surely he wouldn’t have wounds. 

It’s like someone flips a switch and suddenly Peter’s gasping and shaking.

Tony crosses the room, expertly places the mug on the bedside table and sits next to him in one swift motion. 

“Yup, that makes sense.” Tony nods, crosses his legs. “Strange told me about the loop. I’m just going to sit right here, if that works for you.”

It’s overwhelming. Peter can’t quite process that he’s no longer stuck on the same terrible day. He’s afraid that he’ll blink and everything around him will fade to Titan once again. 

He buries his face in his hands because it’s embarrassing. He’s sixteen, probably older if he adds up all of the loop days. He’ll have to ask Strange if those count.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

Peter peers through his fingers at Tony. He’s looking straight ahead, not at Peter, which makes it better somehow, less humiliating.

“We really won? And you’re alive?” His voice sounds so small.

“You bet. Thor just—“ Tony mimes hitting Peter’s leg with hammer as he clicks his tongue. “And there was lightning and it took almost their whole army out.”

Peter nods but he still can’t wrap his head around it. It sounds fake.

“It’s all thanks to you, kid. And the wizard. I would lecture you for being reckless and putting yourself through that however many times, but,” Tony shrugs. “I’m not going to lie, I kind of like how this worked out. According to Strange, it’s much better than the alternatives.”

Peter stares down at his hands. He doesn’t want to think about the other endings.

“Where are we?” he asks to get off the subject.

Tony actually looks at Peter now, taken aback. The expression quickly smoothes over.

“Right. Well, we’re in my house. Welcome. This is your room.” He grimaces. “But that sounds borderline certifiable, so we can definitely forget I just said that and never refer to it as such again.”

Peter scans his surroundings with renewed curiosity. Outside the window, there are tall pines, and a lake. Although there are no decorations and very little furniture, the room is still more homey than technical.

“You have a house? In the woods?” He replays Tony’s words again in his head. “Wait.  _ My  _ room?”

Tony sighs. “Didn’t we just discuss forgetting that?”

Peter just waits, watches him.

“Jesus, you’re as bad as—“ he cuts off. “With the puppy dog eyes

Peter grins and then pushes it down into an exaggerated frown, widening his eyes.

“Ugh.” Tony punches Peter’s arm lightly. “Stop that.”

Tony takes a deep breath and the light mood they’d somehow found shifts. 

“I kind of—I guess you could say freaked out when I got back from Titan,” Tony laughs drily. “When Pep and I had the house built, I insisted that we had to have a room for you. For when we got everyone back, so you’d have a place to stay if you ever came over here.”

A lump forms in Peter’s throat that he can’t swallow around.

“Even when so much time passed, I wouldn’t let Pep put anything in it. It probably drove her crazy, but she never complained about it.” Tony flashes a strained smile. “So, that’s what this room is. You can hang out here until some of the chaos calms down. The world’s population just doubled. Happy’s trying to get your aunt.”

Peter’s left speechless. He had heard Strange recount that five years had passed to the guardians upwards of 100 times. That’s a long time to wait, to hold on to that kind of hope. But if there’s one thing Peter learned from the loop, it’s that hope is very, very strange. 

But, Tony always knows how to distract people, and May’s the best thing he could have chosen. Peter’s heart lurches when she’s mentioned.

“May did she—"

“She’s been gone, too. Back now.”

That’s good, better than the other option. Peter hates to think of her alone in their apartment. It would have been a heavy hit so soon after Ben.

Tony is still acting uncharacteristically nervous. Fiddling with the glasses perched on his nose and opening and closing his hands occasionally.

“I’d like you to meet someone.” The words come out fast, like if he doesn’t get them all out he might stop halfway through and never continue. “If you feel up to it, that is.”

Peter agrees, of course. He pushes the blanket off his legs and shifts to get out of bed. It hurts, but not as bad as it had. 

Tony pushes him back down and gestures for him to stay put. He walks over to the door, shoots Peter an unreadable glance before leaving. 

When he comes back, Pepper trails behind him. For a split second, Peter’s convinced that over the years Tony had forgotten that they know each other. He almost makes a joke about it aloud, because the alternative is to mourn over the lost time, but then he notices a smaller figure peeking out around Pepper’s legs.

“Peter, this is Morgan.”

The girl darts out from behind Pepper and makes grabby hands up at Tony. He lifts her despite Pepper’s protests and settles her on the side that hadn’t held the stones. That’s the first time that Peter notices the bandages sticking out from under Tony’s right sleeve. He can’t stop staring at them, the little strips of white. It takes him a few seconds to refocus on Tony’s words.

“Hi, Morgan,” he says, dumbly. “I’m Peter.”

She looks at Peter and then ducks her head into Tony’s neck shyly. There’s a beat of awkward silence. Tony looks a little lost, glances back at Pepper. They’re the type of couple that do silent conversations. She shifts her eyes from Tony to Peter and back, nods. Tony squints at her, tilts his head a little.

It’s all interrupted by the girl—Morgan, tapping on Tony’s cheek. 

“That’s Spider-Man,” she whispers, the way a child does, where it’s somehow hushed, but still too loud.

Then it clicks. “Oh, she’s—oh my god. That’s amazing—I can’t believe it, wow.”

It is great—so great that it’s overwhelming. Peter’s getting all worked up again and he does not want to lose it in front of Tony’s  _ daughter _ . He’d already known how high the stakes were throughout the loop, but retrospectively, they’re even higher. Tony had a family—which Peter had already known. He had Pepper and Rhodey and Happy. But Morgan makes it all so much more real. She’s so young and tiny and Peter had watched her dad die so many times.

But it’s okay, he reminds himself, because none of that really happened anymore. This image in front of him is the real thing—Pepper’s hands on Tony’s shoulders, Morgan pinching Tony’s earlobe, Tony alive.

“Down, Daddy, let me down.” Morgan kicks her feet. 

Tony’s watching Peter carefully as Morgan scrambles onto the bed. She bounces on her knees a few times, never looking away from him, either. Two sets of almost identical eyes. 

“Have you been in here forever?” Morgan asks. “The door’s always locked.”

It’s so earnest and logical in such a youthful way that Peter can’t help but smile. 

“Nope, just got here.”

She stops bouncing and plops down next to Peter. “Okay, want to talk about insects?”

“She really likes insects,” Pepper supplies. “Especially the—”

“Bombardier Beetle. It has two separate glands for  hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone, otherwise it would explode because they would react. When it gets scared, it can combine the chemicals and shoot them at its enemies!” Morgan fiddles with her hands a bit and then smiles up at Peter. “Arachnids are pretty cool, too.”

Peter can never tell her that he’s afraid of spiders —and most other things that have no business having so many thin, spindly legs. That will be his best kept secret now. He’ll protect it more than his identity.

Tony’s face radiates pride as Morgan speaks. He leans forward and kisses the back of her head. 

“Our resident bug expert.” He taps his fingers across her back like something is crawling up it until she squirms away, giggling. “Why don’t you tell Peter who your favorite hero is? Besides Mr. Beetle de Bombardier.”

A devilish grin creeps its way onto Morgan’s face. It’s strikingly similar to Tony’s.

“Sp-ur-mn,” she mumbles fast, before descending into laughter.

Tony’s face faux-hardens. “What was that, young lady?”

“Spider-Man!” She covers her mouth as soon as the word’s out in the open.

“That’s it.” Tony stands abruptly. “I’m canceling play-time, indefinitely.”

He scoops Morgan up and winks at Peter. “We talked about this, Miss Maguna. You always say that I’m your favorite, especially when we have guests.”

“Morgan, sweetie,” Pepper calls. “Who’s your next favorite hero?”

“Mommy!”

Tony dramatically sways back and forth, with exaggerated gasps, before collapsing onto the bed with Morgan still in his arms.

Traffic’s a nightmare, according to Happy. Given the circumstances, it makes sense, but Peter’s still anxious to see May. Tony doesn’t leave his side as he waits.

“This is all so crazy.”

It must be the hundredth time that Peter’s said it, but he doesn’t know how to stop. He can’t comprehend any of it. The loop, the win, the five year gap, the changed world.

Tony, thankfully, hasn’t snapped at him for reusing the same line again and again like a shitty daytime TV production. He usually just looks sympathetic and agrees.

This time’s a little different. “You know, kid. These last five years, they’ve felt like a dream to me.”

Tony grabs his glasses from where they had been resting on the table. They spin in his hands a few times before landing in front of his eyes. 

“Pepper and Morgan—I never thought something like that would happen for me. But, my little slice of—I don’t know, happiness, I guess, was built on the graves of so many people. I was living with regrets. So I’m going to say some stuff but if you don’t want to hear it, just tell me to stop.”

Peter resists the urge to repeat how crazy this is because somehow he’s entering his second heart-to-heart of the day with Tony-freaking-Stark. 

“Pete, you—look, I’m serious, I don’t want to overstep so just stop me—I was devastated after Titan. I mean, who wouldn’t have been, half the universe just, poof! But, it was something extra, too, because I lost you up there. You floated right out of my arms and I couldn’t do anything and that killed a part of me, kid. I thought it was just because you were my responsibility, but it was something else too. I feel the same way when I think of anything happening to Morgan.”

Tony takes the glasses off, twitches his head towards Peter and then puts them back on. 

“I don’t want you to think—I’m not trying to replace what your uncle was to you, no one can take his place. But, I’d like to be there for you. Not because you need anyone, but just—because.”

He doesn’t say ‘father’ or ‘son’ or any alternatives. They both have too much baggage there for those words to be thrown around without disturbing a makeshift gate that holds back all the things that they probably need to talk about at some point, but are better off leaving alone for now. But, he does say that he’ll be there, and Peter’s always looking for people who stay. They’ll figure out the rest along the way.

“I’d like that a lot.”

Tony sniffs, runs his thumb under his nose. “Well, good. I built you a whole room here so it would have been pretty rude for you to never use it.”

Peter’s pretty sure that translates to  _ I love you, kiddo. _

“Well, it was pretty rude of  _ you _ to die so many times without saying all that to me.”

_ I love you, too. _

**Author's Note:**

> It was so much easier to think of ways they could have won than ways they kept losing lol 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! 
> 
> If you've seen ffh, I'd love for you to check out this [story.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19865533)
> 
> Find me on [tumblr!](https://peterparkrr.tumblr.com)


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